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GamerSushi Asks: Where’s the Value?

I’ve had one hell of a couple of weeks. I’ve been busy, tired, and working like crazy on a number of things. But in the middle of it all, I managed to get in a playthrough of Batman: Arkham Asylum, and boy was it worth it. As a few of you know, especially those that read Mitch’s review, the game is a blast, has an excellent story and some quality stealth gameplay. But something about it bothered me: its length.

While I think the game is maybe one of the best of this year, it is just simply too short for the money that people are expected to pay for it. To me, the game is totally worth $30-$40 simply because of its quality, but $60 is just asking too much for a game that only takes about 8 hours or so to beat. Sure, there is replay value in the challenges and Riddler puzzles, but does anyone else see this as an issue in terms of rising game costs?

To me, this is exactly why people tend to gravitate towards sequels and multiplayer games- the $60 price point is just too much for an impulse buy, or for a game that will only take one weekend to finish. So, what do you guys think about this issue? Go!

10 thoughts on “GamerSushi Asks: Where’s the Value?”

I find some trouble in it too. But after getting all 1000 gamerscore from it (no easy task, damn those final challenge rooms) I decided that it was almost worth it. But you’re right, $60 dollars for a medium length single player game is kinda tough, especially when people can see more games on the horizon. By doing this, the developer is going to see that a lot of people will just end up renting the game, which in turn makes them lose money.

Yeah, 60 bucks is a little steep for only 8 ours of gameplay, especially when considering that I payed 60 for Fallout 3…

GO ahead and give me a thumbs down, but its another big reason that games get pirated. $60 for 8 hours is a lot. Personally, I like to wait for games like this to drop or come on a sweet STEAM weekend deal. Those are always the way to go if you can keep your pants on for a few months. I know I jumped the gun on Mirror’s Edge, payed full price… And while it was a beautiful game.. it was too short, even with the extra challenges.

Yeah, there should be some sort of Council of the Gods that decides how much a game should cost. Maybe they’d also do age content ratings and other things, essentially being a more powerful and effective ESRB. But maybe we should just make every game free. lol
In the end, the more content a game has, the higher its price, which could be decided by the CotG.